


Unraveled

by kitlee625



Series: Consanguinity [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Major Illness, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Stark-Lannisters seem like the perfect family dealing with a tragic illness in the youngest son. But when Bran Stark overhears something he shouldn't he starts to unravel the family secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to George RR Martin.

Arya has just landed on Tommen's hotel on Park Place when an unfamiliar doctor comes in looking grim.

Tommen is too overjoyed at wiping out his younger sister to notice the visitor. “Pay up!” he says gleefully. His voice is muffled behind the oxygen mask, but his triumphant smile shines through.

Arya glares at him and tosses a small stack of bills across the board. They flutter through the air like bits of confetti, and a few fall off the table.

Myrcella, always the dutiful older sister, says, “Arya, play nicely.”

“This is me playing nicely.” Arya scowls and sticks her tongue out at Tommen, who rubs his hands together gleefully.

Bran is the only one who notices the doctor standing awkwardly in the doorway. It's not someone he's seen before. After fifteen days in the hospital they know all the doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists, and everyone knows the Stark-Lannisters.

Finally the doctor clears her throat and says, “Mrs. Stark?”

Cersei Lannister peers over the top edge of her computer screen at the unfamiliar doctor. She's been sitting in one corner of the room all day reviewing a big presentation for work. “It's Ms. Lannister.”

The doctor presses her lips together nervously. “Sorry about that, Ms. Lannister. Are you married to Eddard Stark?”

“Ned,” she corrects. “Is he here?”

The doctor glances at the four children in the room. “Maybe we should speak someplace more private?”

Cersei looks impatient. “Is it about Tommen?”

“It's about your husband.”

“Fine.” She stands up and follows the doctor into the hall.

“I wonder what that's about,” Bran muses as Tommen rolls the die.

Myrcella shrugs. “I wonder what's keeping Dad.” She laughs when Tommen lands on her three houses on St. James Place, but Tommen pulls out his thick wad of Monopoly money.

“Chump change,” he says.

“Yeah, where's Dad? I'm starving,” Arya complains. 

“What's he bringing tonight?” Tommen asks.

“Pizza,” Bran replies.

Tommen does a little fist pump. “Yes!”

Bran looks around the hospital room, which is full of snacks – boxes of goldfish crackers, bags of oreos, and a jar of peanut butter are all crammed into the window sill. “It's not like you're starving in here.”

“The food is terrible,” Tommen complains, “it's even worse than Hopkins food.”

Part of Tommen's disease is that he can't digest food properly. Even though he eats twice as much as his sibling, he is still small and skinny. Bran studies his brother's face and decides that despite having been in the hospital for two weeks Tommen looks okay. He's not as thin as he gets when he's in the intensive care unit, and his spirits are up. The real problem is that despite being fifteen he looks like he's eleven or twelve. After her recent growth spurt Arya is now as tall as he is despite being three years younger.

When their mother reappears in the doorway Bran can see by the look on her face that something is wrong. So can Myrcella.

“What is it Mom?” Myrcella asks.

Her mouth is pulled into a tight line. In clipped tones she says, “It's your father. He was driving into the hospital and got into an accident. By the time he made it to the hospital, it was too late. He's dead.”

Bran goes numb. Tommen and Myrcella begin to cry. Arya looks furious at her mother.

“No!” she shouts. She jumps up from where she's been sitting on the end of Tommen's bed. “It can't be true!”

Cersei just looks tired. “I'm sorry.”

Arya looks like she wants to throw something at the wall. Bran moves to try to stop her, but Cersei gets there first. She is not usually a demonstrative mother, but she wraps her arms around Arya, who begins to cry.

In a small voice Bran asks, "Can we see Dad?"

Cersei nods. "The doctor from the emergency room was going to get us when they were ready."

When the doctor returns to escort them down to the emergency room Tommen begs his mother to let him come too, but Cersei insists that he's too sick to leave his room. It takes some convincing, but at last she agrees to let him come say goodbye to their father so long as one of the doctors comes with them. The intern who accompanies them is an Indian young woman who has given them multiple updates the past couple of weeks. She and the nurse help Tommen into a wheelchair and set up a portable oxygen tank. Then she leads the way wheeling Tommen out of the pediatric pulmonary unit and down the hall to the emergency room. 

When they get there a tall black haired doctor rushes over to greet them. "You must be the Starks. I'm so sorry for your loss. I was the attending who took care of your father."

"Can we see him?" Cersei asks.

"Sure." He looks over his shoulder towards a row of four large rooms with glass walls. "Everything's all cleared up." As they walk past the other rooms Bran notes that two of them are empty, and a third has an elderly man strapped to a backboard lying on a gurney. He wonders for a second if the elderly man was in the accident too. Perhaps he'd been the other driver. But the thought leaves his head when they reach the last room. Someone has hastily cleared up the room but there are still scraps of paper and bits of plastic scattered on the floor. In the corner there are traces of blood smeared on the floor, and Bran realizes that it must be his father's blood.

The doctor opens the sliding glass door and gestures for them to enter. Arya immediately runs to their dad's side.

"Can I touch him?" she asks.

"Sure," the doctor says.

Bran stands next to his sister as she hesitantly reaches out a finger to touch his hand. "He's so cold," she says.

People always say that the dead look like they're sleeping, but Bran disagrees. This body in front of him bears only a passing resemblance to his father. Sure, he has the same facial features, same dark hair and beard. But there's clearly something missing. It's as if the light inside him has been extinguished leaving only the shell behind. Next to him Myrcella touches his cheek.

"Goodbye Daddy," she whispers.

The intern has maneuvered Tommen's wheelchair so that he is beside his siblings but sitting down his eyes are level with the edge of the gurney. The ER physician lifts him up so he can see his father, and Tommen begins to sob.

"He looks ... gone," Tommen says. He gasps for breath between sobs, and Cersei gives her youngest son a concerned look. Bran wonders if like him she is imaging Tommen lying on the gurney in place of Ned.

They are interrupted by a knock on the door. A woman in a cardigan and plaid skirt is standing beside a man with a clipboard.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Stark?”

“Lannister,” Cersei snaps. “Who are you?”

“We're from the state's transplant coordination team. We're so sorry about your loss, but we were wondering if we could talk about organ donation.”

Confused, Myrcella says, “Tommen's waiting for a lung transplant.”

The man glances at his clipboard. “Your brother?” he asks.

She pats Tommen's shoulder. “This is Tommen.”

“Ah. So then you know first hand just how important donating organs is,” he says.

The look Cersei gives them both could stop a wolf in its tracks. It is a look all the children have experienced first hand. Both of the visitors back up slightly.

Icily, she asks, “Have you come here in front of my children to ask me to donate their father's organs?”

Neither can look her in the eye, but at last the woman says haltingly, “I know that this is difficult and that it sounds insensitive, but this is one way that something good can come of this tragedy.”

Arya is still crying silently into Cersei's blouse, and Cersei says sarcastically, “Something good. All right. Do it.” Her voice softens as she adds quietly, “It's what Ned would have wanted.”

Bran knows that this is true.

The man and woman exchange a surprised look. “Thank you.”

Arya pulls away from her mom to ask, “Does that mean Tommen's going to get Dad's lungs?” She sounds both curious and horrified.

When Tommen's doctor confirms that yes they will be typing their father's lungs against Tommen, none of the Stark-Lannisters can go home that night. Cersei lies down on the couch in his hospital room while the three other children set up camp in the waiting room. Hours go by, still with no news. Bran and Myrcella go on a hunt for food. The cafeteria only has hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries warming under UV lights, and Myrcella refuses to eat it. They wind up driving to a Panera and getting sandwiches and salads, which they eat in silence.

It is very late when the doctor returns. Myrcella and Arya have fallen asleep in the waiting room, but Bran is sitting in his brother's darkened room watching a late night showing of some horror movie with the sound off. The title is vaguely familiar from American lit. It may be based off of a Poe novel. He's only half paying attention to it. His thoughts are on his father, who he misses terribly, and his little brother. Next to him he can hear his brother's noisy breathing behind the beep and hum of the monitors. His mother is still awake too. People are always saying that Cersei Lannister looks too young to have teenaged children, but in the glow of her laptop she looks like any other forty-two year old mother: tired and worn out.

The doctor slips into the room and says quietly, “Ms. Lannister. Can we talk outside for a minute?”

Cersei gets up and follows him out of the room. As she does so her eyes linger on Tommen and Bran, checking for signs that they are awake. Bran closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. As soon as he hears the door shut, he hops up and creeps down the hall behind them. They disappear into the family meeting room. A beam of light is shining through a crack in the door. It must not have latched completely. He puts his ear against it to listen.

“I'm sorry to report that your husband's lungs were not a match for Tommen.”

“Did they go to someone else?”

“Yes, to someone in Maryland.”

“One fewer person on the list. Is that everything?”

“Not quite. I don't know how best to say this, but the reason why Tommen couldn't get your husband's lungs is because he wasn't a genetic match. At all.” Silence. “You don't seem surprised by this news.”

“Is this of any relevance to my son's care?” 

“No but -”

“Then this is none of your business. You will not speak of this to my children.”

A loud humming noise behind him drowns out whatever else they might say. A young man is waxing the floors. There's no window in the door, and he doesn't dare open the door any wider so he can see what they're doing or try to read lips, so he gives up and goes back to his brother's room. His brain feels numb, and he doesn't completely understand the significance of what he heard, but he also can't forget it.


	2. Chapter 2

Bran tries not to cry as Myrcella puts the last of her bags in the car.

“That's all of it.” She closes the trunk and turns to where Bran and Arya are standing at the edge of the driveway. “I'm going to miss you guys.”

“Me too,” Bran says. He doesn't want to admit that he's not sure how he's going to survive at home without her, but by the look she gives him she's thinking the same thing. She gives him a big hug.

“Hang in there,” she whispers in his ear, “and call me with anything. If you need me to come back it's a short drive from Westeros.”

“We'll be fine.” He tries to smile, but it feels weak. “Arya and I'll hold down the fort.”

She hugs Arya. “Be good for Mom and Bran,” she says.

For once Arya doesn't roll her eyes or argue with her sister. “I will. I'll help him out,” she promises.

“Good. I'll see you guys at Thanksgiving for sure. And if anything happens with Tommen, let me know.” She glances at her watch. “I guess I should hit the road. Don't want to miss check in.”

“Aren't you going to wait to say goodbye to Mom?” Bran asks.

She shakes her head. “I said goodbye earlier this morning before you guys were awake. She wanted to get to the hospital early to see Tommen. I guess he had a rough night.”

“Did he have to get intubated?”

“No, at least not that Mom had heard.” She checks her cell phone to see if there's another text on it from their mom, but it's empty.

They all still expecting their dad to come running out of house and declare that he can't believe that his oldest baby is going to college. It wasn't really a surprise when Myrcella got the fat acceptance letter from Westeros University. Their grandfather is on the board of trustees, and the campus boasts both a Lannister hall and the Lannister wing of the library. But ever since that letter arrived all Ned could talk about was how excited he was that his little girl would be going to his alma mater. He had been looking forward to dropping her off for months and had planned out the trip in excruciating detail.

It's been barely a month since their dad had died in a car accident. Every day since Bran has run over the events of the day in his mind, especially what he overheard between his mother and the doctor when the rest of his siblings were asleep. He hasn't told Myrcella what he heard, and he's not sure what's stopping him. Myrcella is his best friend. They tell each other everything. But something tells him to hold this information back.

Besides in the past month they have both been busy taking care of things at home and getting her ready for college. Without their dad things around the house quickly fell apart, even with the full-time housekeeper. Bran and Myrcella had to cobble together a schedule to keep things running – getting everyone to music lessons, sports practices, volunteer jobs, and still have time for dinner. Tommen is still in the hospital and is getting sicker each day as he waits for a new set of lungs. Bran can't help but feel both envious and resentful that after today Myrcella will be gone. All this will fall to him now.

Perhaps Myrcella sees some of those emotions on his face because she leans in to give him another hug. “It'll be your turn soon,” she whispers. “Come visit me this year.” She gives Arya one more hug and then hops into her car. Bran and Arya watch her pull out of the driveway and disappear.

Almost as soon as Myrcella disappears from sight their phones beep. It is a text message from their mother.

“Your brother is worse. Come now.”

Bran glances at her sister. They are both still in their pajamas and haven't had breakfast yet.

“Let's try to leave in five minutes,” he says, “and I'll buy you a donut on the way.”

*****

Bran is surprised to see his uncle Jaime pacing in the waiting room when they get off the elevator.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your mom asked me to come. She said Tommen took a turn for the worst this morning.”

Bran wonders what it means that that phrase has lost all meaning to him. He can't even remember the first time he heard it, the first time his parents told him that his brother might not live another day. But despite such grim predictions Tommen has made it through every setback. 

He tries to look appropriately concerned as Arya says, “I'm sure he'll be fine. He always is.”

“I hope you're right. Anyway, I think it's hard for your mom to go through this without your dad.”

Bran wonders how much of that is true. His parents subscribed to the divide and conquer method of parenting. Cersei had been in charge of making money, spending money, and Tommen while Ned handled the other three children.

“Where's Mom?”

“She's getting some coffee. We're having a meeting with some of the doctors in a little bit.”

“Can we go see Tommen?” Arya asks.

Jaime just shrugs.

Bran and Arya go through the double glass doors labeled Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The clerk at the front desk smiles at them with sad eyes. It's a bad sign when your brother has been so sick for so long that everyone in the hospital knows to feel sorry for you.

Tommen's room is right across from the main nurses station. They put on yellow paper gowns and masks to protect him from germs before going in.

“I wonder if Mom's going to buy these for Tommen's room when he gets home,” Arya jokes.

The sight when they step inside stops any clever retort from Bran's mouth. Tommen is definitely worse. Three days before he had been well enough to play video games with Arya when they came to visit. The past couple of days he had been more tired, but they had still watched the original Star Wars trilogy together. Today though he is barely awake. He looks like a rag doll lying strewn across the bed. His pajamas are damp with sweat, and his long blond curls are plastered to his forehead. A huge plastic mask is strapped to his face blowing air into his lungs. With every breath his tiny chest inflates like a balloon, but it's the only movement Bran can see him make.

Next to him Arya lets out a little sob.

“Tommen?” Bran says hesitantly. He steps beside his brother and places one gloved hand on his brother's shoulder. “Tommen, are you awake? It's me, Bran. Arya's here too.”

There's no response. Bran squeezes his brother's hand. “Hang in there buddy,” he says.

Arya goes around to the other side of the bed and places her face up against Tommen's ear. The peach-colored paper mask over her nose and mouth brushes against his ear as she whispers something into his ear. Bran can't make it out over the sound of the machines. 

Looking over his shoulder he can see that his mother is standing outside with the doctors along with Uncle Jaime and Grandfather. Tywin Lannister is staring at the doctors with a very disapproving look as they talk. After a few minutes their mom sticks her head into the room.

“Bran, Arya. You need to get out. The doctors are going to put Tommen on a breathing machine.”

As they walk outside and shed the protective gear into the trash can, Bran takes a long look at Tommen. He wonders what his brother is feeling or if he's too sick to realize what's going on. He hopes it's the latter. He lingers outside the door as the doctors rush around getting everything together. Someone pushes over a rolling metal cabinet, and someone else brings over a cart with one of those boxes with a paddle on it that he recognizes from reruns of ER.

“You shouldn't be here,” says an Indian intern not unkindly. “Your family's gone to the waiting room.”

Bran wants to protest – to say that someone who loves Tommen should be there just in case he doesn't make it– but he doesn't want to put something so grim into words. 

In the waiting room Arya is plugged into her laptop listening to music and ignoring the world. Cersei is talking with Uncle Jaime and Grandfather. They are trying to keep their voices down, but Cersei raises her voice when Bran enters. 

“It's been six weeks! What was the point of giving all that money if we still have to wait like everyone else?”

Jaime puts his hand on her shoulder. “It's only been six weeks, and he's hanging in there. The doctors said it could take a year or more on the list before a match comes up.”

“He doesn't have a year,” Cersei snaps.

*****

Hours later Bran is hungry. Arya is sleeping on a couch in the waiting room, and he doesn't really want to wake her up and have to carry her home. Maybe uncle Jaime can help him move her when he leaves as well. His mom and Jaime are having another meeting of the doctors, to which he and Arya were not invited. He decides to get a sandwich from the cafeteria while he waits. 

It feels weird being in a different hospital. Years ago they had moved from Chevy Chase to Baltimore specifically to be closer to Johns Hopkins, and Bran has been in that hospital so much that it feels like another home. He and Myrcella know every inch of that hospital – the best places to get food, or a blanket, or just hide. They know how to sneak into the doctors' lounge so they can use the computer and which nurses are the most likely to give them candy. Myrcella would come up with all these crazy games to pass the time – wheelchair races through the hospital corridors, seeing who could get the most pieces of free birthday cake from the nurses, or trying to sneak out onto the helicopter pad. In comparison this hospital seems small and strange.

The cafeteria is small, but even late at night there's one person behind the counter making sandwiches. Bran orders a grilled cheese with ham and a side of onion rings to share with Arya. It takes a few minutes for the person to make his food. The only other person in the cafeteria is a young woman with short pale blonde hair.

“Hi,” she says, “you're here visiting your brother, right?” She has a southern accent and a warm, friendly smile.

“How do you know that?”

“Your mom pointed you and your sister out. I'm one of the doctors taking care of him.”

“How is he doing?”

“He had a rough night last night, but he's doing a little better now. Your brother's a fighter.”

Bran doesn't know what that's supposed to mean, but he says, “Yeah, he's been through a lot.”

“You all have I'm sure. It must be hard having your brother be so sick. Are you older?”

“Yeah, by two years. Arya's three years younger than Tommen, and we have another sister Myrcella who's a year older than me. She just started college.”

“Where does she go?”

“Westros.” 

“Wow, that's a great school.”

“It's where my mom and dad went,” he explains, leaving out the fact that he and his siblings will all be going there as well thanks to the Lannister name.

“Now, there was another man with your mom when I went to update her. Is he your mom's friend?”

“That's my uncle Jaime. My mom's twin brother.”

“Oh. Your brother looks a lot like him and your mom.”

“Yeah. Tommen and Myrcella look like Mom. Arya and I look like our dad.”

“Now I haven't met your dad yet.”

“He died in a car accident about a month ago.”

The woman got an odd look on her face. “Oh. I think I heard about that. I'm so sorry.

Something in her face makes Bran ask, “So how do they match lungs anyway?”

“Well the first thing is just to make sure that they're healthy. The size of the lungs are also important; you can't put big lungs in a small person. Then we do genetic testing. We look at several genetic markers to see how closely the organ matches. You inherit half of them from your mom and half from your dad.

“Thanks,” he says. His order pops up in the window, and he goes back upstairs thinking. 

So if Tommen wasn't a match to Ned at all he couldn't have been his son. Based on the conversation he'd overheard his mother wasn't surprised by that news. But that begged the question: who's son is he?

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea of a modern Game of Thrones AU for a while, but after reading some amazing Ned/Cersei fics, namely The Joinery by arbitrarily and On Troubled Waters by trulyunruly, I was inspired to add another twist to the story. I think of the other stories in the series as the background to this one.


End file.
